In Conversation: Eve Rodsky & Dr. Deepika Chopra

"Fair Play" author Eve Rodsky and "The Optimism Doctor" Deepika Chopra are professional pals turned newly discovered spiritual friends.

"I was drawn to you," the psychologist tells Rodsky.

The women are sitting in a lush backyard at the Los Angeles home Dr. Chopra shares with her husband Alex Silverman and their three children.

"I look up to you as a mentor," Dr. Chopra adds, "even though you're not much older than me. But, I also knew we were going to be friends [outside of work]."

The two initially connected through the behavioral science and visual imagery expert's former podcast, "Looking Up with Dr. Deepika Chopra," when Rodsky was promoting her New York Times Bestselling book about household equity.

"When I walked into your house [today], I had like a little bit of post-traumatic stress," Rodsky jokes to Dr. Chopra. "I gave evil eyes to Alex. He's like, 'Who is this stranger yelling at me when I walk in?' I said, 'No, I go dark to go light. You’re going to like me eventually.'"

A fellow mother of three, Rodsky had been working as a lawyer and adviser to high-net-worth families and charitable foundations. She found her calling as an advocate for gender parity in the invisible workplace after a now-infamous incident —more on that below — with her husband Seth Rodsky, an investor and co-founder of Strand Equity and Hello Sunshine.

Rodsky's research led to "Fair Play," which gained steam (and Reese Witherspoon’s seal of approval) in 2019. She has since written and released a follow-up book, "Find Your Unicorn Space: Reclaim Your Creative Life in a Too-Busy World."

Rodsky was one of Dr. Chopra’s first phone calls when navigating the deal for her forthcoming debut book, "Real Optimism," out next year from Simon & Schuster.

“I told my friend about [you] because it touched me,” Dr. Chopra says, reminiscing about the day Rodsky dropped everything to help.

Contrary to occasional confusion over Dr. Chopra's last name, self-help isn't in her blood. While the psychologist's father shares a name with Deepak Chopra, her father is the chairman and CEO of electronic security company OSI Systems — not the famed new age guru.

Dr. Chopra grew up in Palos Verdes Estates, where she attended Palos Verdes Peninsula High School. After attending UCLA as an undergrad and earning her Doctorate of Psychology elsewhere, Dr. Chopra completed a double postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA and Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Dr. Chopra was a partner at the tech health company Aligned Telehealth before focusing on her career as "The Optimism Doctor."

Meanwhile, Rodsky was raised by a single mother in New York City. She received her B.A. in economics and anthropology from the University of Michigan and her Doctor of Law from Harvard Law School. She started her career as a corporate attorney at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP before becoming the director of external affairs and operations for Advocates for Children of New York. She then became a foundation advisor for J.P. Morgan, and eventually, Rodsky launched the Philanthropic Advisory Group for high-profile family foundations in 2012.

As Rodsky and Dr. Chopra discover during their conversation, they have a lot in common — beyond both touting popular self-help card decks (Rodsky’s "The Fair Play Deck" and Dr. Chopra’s "Things Are Looking Up" decks for adults and kids). Their children attend the same school; the duo have mutual friends; and they both speak the same psychological shorthand.

By mid-conversation, Rodsky and Dr. Chopra are finishing one another’s sentences. Read on to learn more about their differing yet complementary approaches to work, life, motherhood, and more…

DEEPIKA CHOPRA: We met because you had just written the book, ['Fair Play'], and your PR company [reached out]. I had the podcast. I saw an email come through, and I [thought], 'This is so interesting.' I was excited to talk to you. I will never forget [our conversation] because it was COVID, and I was recording out of my parents' house. You told the blueberry story… which you have to retell. The podcast episode is comical now. [After our conversation], I went back and [said to my husband], 'Alex, we have a problem, [and] we need to solve this problem.' We were just about to have our second child. Now we have three. I [said], 'We need to sort [our responsibilities] out before this happens. I [also] remember one other thing that you said in that conversation that got me thinking. And I [thought], 'This woman is brilliant.' You talked about [this concept of] the invisible work. [The idea of] how someone might say, 'I have to go to the grocery store and I have to buy this or that,' but [only you know] the specific mustard that your child likes or the specific sandwich, [which was] something that was part of my [mental] load for sure. I wasn't putting that down on my list of what was going on in my brain. I remember telling Alex [about our conversation and the need to divvy responsibilities]. He was not understanding when I [said], 'Listen, these are all the things I'm doing during the day. One of which is ordering Instacart. Do you know how much time ordering on Instacart takes?'

EVE RODSKY: Yes! You're emailing with the person. You're asking for a substitution. It's not the almond milk because your child can't have dairy, so it's the coconut milk. These are thousands of decisions that we make every day. I'm happy we got to meet. I was thinking – when we talked during COVID – about optimism. It's such an important and beautiful word. The only time in my life that I wasn't optimistic was [when I understood] the assumptions that my gender put on me when it came to childcare and housework. I had big dreams. I dreamt of being a Knicks City dancer, [the] President of the United States, and a Senator from New York. I was going to smash those glass ceilings, and I didn't. Cut to my life, ten years later, and the only thing I could say I was smashing was peas for my toddler. Even then, I had optimism that I could find a way through. But it was society's assumptions of who I was [that made me feel less optimistic]. Instead of being Eve, I was Zach's mom. Instead of being an acrobat, I had to do things to make money for my family. Instead of being somebody who has my own agency, I was now going to be in service of others. It was an interesting time we met because I was pretty down [at that moment].

DC: I remember… You [recorded] from your guest house and you had a poster…

ER: Yeah, it was a Shepard Fairey, Che Guevara, and Angela Davis. I think what brings us together [and what we have in common] is people can try to pigeonhole us into a self-help world. But what I see of you, too, is this idea that there's active resistance in our work. It's the idea that you can take agency in your own life, but you're breathing polluted air. The hard part [with] self-help before us, or Boss Bitch feminism… I love all of [the] productivity experts that I sit on panels with, [but they] tell you, 'You just need three uninterrupted days a week.' Instead every woman we know is interrupted every three minutes and 42 seconds. That was a stat from the pandemic. If you're going to be in the self-help world, if you're going talk to women about how they can take agency in their own life—they can [strive to have three uninterrupted days a week], but we also want to recognize the context that we're breathing polluted air.

DC: That's such an interesting point. …. [What] draws me to you, too, which is important in my work, is the authenticity and the realism of what you said. The polluted air that we breathe. We don't exist in a vacuum. There [are] all these tips and tricks that [are] thrown at [us]. Even if they come from research, when it comes down to it, [it's a lot of information at once]. A lot of it is in parenting. I've had to mute every single parenting expert.

ER: Oh, absolutely. I agree.

DC: I say all the time, I'm known as the 'Optimism Doctor,' but I am not the most optimistic person, far from it. I actually think in my little microcosm family, I am much more pessimistic than the rest of them. I just know the tools, and I know the research, and I'm trying. I am on a journey…

ER: That's what I love about you.

DC: …and I'm on a journey with everyone else. I can't do it any other way. I try to be transparent about it [and] the tools that I share. When I'm on a panel and talk about it, I don't want to ignore the fact that I might be sharing something, a tool, or research, but can you really do that in your life? What are the things that might impede [upon that]? What if your partner doesn't feel the same way and you guys are raising children? The research shows us that we are a lot like the people we spend the most time with, [but] we can't control others.

ER: That's why I feel we were destined to be friends.

FAIR PLAY & UNICORN SPACE

ER: Optimism, for me, was understanding that there were structural issues. The story that broke me was my husband Seth [texted me asking for something when my plate was already full]. [I was] driving my child to a toddler transition class. …. which was mostly women and a couple of gay fathers. My husband, Seth, sent me a text. I had a newborn baby at home, like you do now, and it said, 'I'm surprised you didn't get blueberries.' What happened to me that day is the story I tell as the origin story. It's my Marvel / Spiderman origin story. [I stopped] on the side of the road to start sobbing over what my life had become. I wasn't smashing glass ceilings; I was smashing peas for my toddler. I was in a car receiving this text as I had a diaper bag and a breast pump on the passenger seat of my car, gifts for a newborn baby in the backseat of the car, and a client contract on my lap. As I was marking [the contract] up, [the pen] was stabbing me in my vagina. That's what I remember. The pen would inch up into my vagina at stop signs because I still mark up projects analog. I had started my own law firm because I thought, somehow, that was more flexible. Ha. Working for yourself. My husband needed the mornings to work out and he needed to stay late at work. [There were] all these accommodations I had made to get me to that side of the road. Seth was sending innocent texts, [but] I was now not just the fulfiller of his smoothie needs, but I was living a statistic that I didn't even know [from] at the time. Women — especially [those who are] married to men – shoulder two-thirds or more of what it takes to run a home and family. …. The only things I had heard at the time were the 'Eat, Pray, Love' narrative, which was to escape. Some women have to for power dynamic and that's fine. But optimism [comes into the picture, and] why I think you and I get along, was that [I wondered if there] could there be another way to look at the institution of marriage and could I bring that to my own relationship?

DC: Wait, I want to stop you because that is the core of optimism. Activists or people that want to change something—[people on the outside of it] only see the part where someone's mad about something. You have to be mad about something, but you [also] have to have hope [as well as] the expectation that something can change. That's the optimism. You cannot do change work without optimism. You can be mad at the status quo. You can dig your heels in it. You can think it's really fucked up, but unless you also have hope and the expectation that something can change to make it better or alter it. …. Without that, no change can be made. So I always tell people – activists and people that have made [a] change in the world – it's not that they dig their feet in and they're mad and they have the loudest voice – it's that they have optimism.

ER: That's why I was drawn to you. We will be friends and I can already tell I'm obsessed with your son [Jag]. My older sons are going to love that boy. I just met him, [but] he loves sports as much as I do and my kids do and my husband does. They're all obsessed. Ask us any stat.

DC: I was proud of myself... I've never had coffee before I know that's weird…

ER: Same. I did once. It turns out I'm anaphylactically allergic to the coffee berry, we think. When I drink coffee, even decaf, I get hives. So yes, we're both aligned. I love tea though.

DC: I love everything about tea. I love the ceremony. When I travel, I get tea.

ER: I got to do a sponsorship with Pure Leaf. They offered to take me to Indonesia to go to the tea field. You're coming with me.

DC: I'm coming with you. Obviously.

ER: So we're going to set that intention here today. We're going to go to a tea leaf field. We're going to pick our own leaves and we're going to watch the entire process. Let's manifest it. Knock on wood. That's going to happen. I'm superstitious, too. But that's part of optimism.

DC: I am, too. Which, by the way, I think is an Indian thing.

ER: And a Jewish thing.

DC: Well, I married a Jewish man. So, I've got both. My kids are Hindjews. But what I was going to say is Alex played baseball at Brown [University]. I married an athlete. He loves playing sports, but he never sat around and watched sports. So, I didn't ever have to deal with the Sunday Football. Then my six-year-old, [became] obsessed this past year. When he was two he was obsessed with dinosaurs. He would put them in [order of] what era they came from and their families and whether they stood on two legs or four. He would separate them. He's like, 'This is from the Mesozoic. These are Theropods.' He was obsessed with separating, collating, and putting things in these specific orders. He loves information and he's an auditory. He loves facts. Then, he got into baseball cards. We'd come downstairs and the cards on our sofa would be by [the] height of the player. Now, with the last NFL season, he got these tiny little helmet toys of all the teams. Every morning, he would move them around based on their stats. He's, 'Yes. No. Wild card.' I know more than I've ever known [about sports]. My husband laughs at me. The three of them are [obsessed], and now sports [are] on all the time. They've never seen a movie, but they just want to watch [sports]. Basketball is always on. Highlights are on. All the games are on. My six-year-old told me about Taylor Swift because of Travis Kelce. Now we're Swifties. I didn't even listen to her before and I love her now. He'll be like, 'Travis Kelce is always hanging out with this girl and she's a singer. Have you ever heard her before?' I'm like, 'I've listened to her a little bit, but I don't know [much].' He's like, 'I wouldn't mind if you wanted to listen to her.' He's really into music, but he didn't want to say he was into [her]. So, now we listen to Taylor Swift, and we go between Taylor Swift and the Chicago Bulls entry song in the car. That's what I listen to now.

ER: It'll be interesting because those songs will then have resonance for you later on because you'll be like, 'This is where I was in my life,' and you're going to say to yourself, 'How did I get through that time?' You find that optimism [at] the moment, but these are hard times. Raising children in America [right now] is a dark and hard time.

DC: It is. It's lonely.

ER: What is so beautiful about listening to you and being on your podcast, but then listening to you [now] and knowing that – knock on wood – you have a lot of fun stuff coming up is that [I have a sense of what you're in for]. I had a hard time writing my second book. 'Fair Play' was about 'how do you tackle the blueberries breakdown so you don't get there [again]?' My favorite quote of anybody who read it [said] she learned from the book that 'she doesn't have a magical vagina that whispers in her ear what her husband's mother wants for Christmas.' So, 'no magical vaginas' is the message of 'Fair Play.' But the message of my second book, 'Find Your Unicorn Space,' was that I was incredibly alarmed when people were getting time back in our big data set from 'Fair Play.' They were telling me they lost the ability to figure out what they [wanted] to do with that time. … There [are] a lot of people who go to what we call a 'hedonic worldview.' You and I both talk about that. We'll go to edibles; we'll go to mommy juice. We're doing things to numb our ways through life. Look, I get it. It's hard out there, but those don't have the long-term endorphin and dopamine responses we need for healthy coping. That's what I was looking for in my second book: 'Why did we lose this ability –especially women – to understand that we can be something other than a parent, a partner, and a professional?' What [filled] the gap was this happiness practice that felt counterintuitive; it turns out [that] when you focus on happiness, it makes you sad. That's why I love optimism versus happiness.

DC: Yeah, [focusing on happiness] makes you unhappy.

ER: [During] the mid-2000s to 2020, we got into this idea that we could gratitude journal ourselves to death. I would see people say on social media, 'Eve, I understand that you want me to share the childcare …. or you want them to go to the store and actually understand how to have ownership over a grocery list, but what I learned in my happiness practice is that I don't say anymore that I have to go to the store.'

DC: Right. [Some people encourage you to reframe the perspective by saying], 'I get to.'

ER: 'I get to go to the store.' You fucking get to go to the store? The assumption of who you are as a woman makes it that you have to go to the store. Because no one else is doing it. Don't [reframe it and] tell me you get to do these things. That's complete and total happiness gaslighting. What I like about optimism is it says there is an openness to [having] agency in your life, but you're not gaslighting people [by telling them] they always have to be happy. Thank you for that distinction.

THE ART OF OPTIMISM

DC: It alarms people. When I'm speaking to a large audience, I always say, 'What's the first word that comes to your mind when you think of optimism?' Of course, everyone shouts out positivity or happiness. People are shocked when I [say], 'The first two words for me – with research behind this – what comes to mind with optimism is resiliency and curiosity.' ... I don't love [the term 'toxic positivity'] anymore because I feel like [it] has become what gratitude was… It makes you want to eye roll. … [But] I was an integrative oncologist at UCLA for a few years, and it's also where I did one of my fellowships…

ER: Did we ever talk about that? Did you work for Anne Coscarelli?

DC: I did. Yes.

ER: Yeah, that's weird. We have a lot of things in common. Anne Coscarelli [was] funded by my client, Vicki Simms.

DC: I know Vicki Simms well. I just closed out the Aspen Ideas: Health Festival last year. I'm on the board of the Simms/Mann Center [for Integrative Oncology at UCLA] and I worked there.

ER: I was the one who structured the Simms/Mann Center for Vicki as her lawyer. Once Trump was elected, I took my law firm and gave my clients to my partner in New York, and then, here, locally to another philanthropic advisor that I love. As you know, my day job is [as] a lawyer. I work for families that look like the [family on the] HBO show 'Succession,' except not Vicki. She's great. Everyone should feel bad for me. There's no optimism there, but the beauty of that work was I got to see these amazing people doing optimistic things. Vicki is amazing. Vicki Simms is in "Find Your Unicorn Space." She's quoted saying something, like, 'Don't make your Unicorn Space the perfection of your child,' because she does a lot of zero-to-three work. She was watching people [with] unfulfilled dreams channel [that feeling] into their children, as opposed to themselves, and it gets complicated, right? So she's amazing, as an aside, but I cannot believe it. We worked with Anne for five years.

DC: I was there almost throughout my entire grad career.

ER: Yeah, so I left there in 2015 or 2016.

DC: I did my fellowship in 2011. So one thing that shocked me from that experience… I was a practicum student which is your first clinical experience in grad school. When you get a cancer diagnosis, you try everything. I remember these patients coming in, and they had gone to a bunch of different holistic [offices]. They were at UCLA; so they were getting Western medication and treatment. But at our center, we were holistic, which is amazing but [we were consulted] in addition to treatment. Over and over, patients would come in and it was heartbreaking because they would say, 'I went and saw this person who told me that I've manifested this because I was anxious or I was thinking about something or this was happening in my life. I was stressed about it or worried. I've created my cancer. Now here I am, it's hard for me to get treatment because then I'm accepting it and we create our own reality.' I don't know if you've heard that.

ER: When I read Steve Jobs's biography by Walter Isaacson, there was a lot of that at the end. He did have some Western medicine, too, and I think the media focused so much on his holistic practices, like the carrot juice, whatever. But I do think there was this idea that you can control what happens to you, and to me, that is part of the toxic positivity, right?

DC: It was heartbreaking to me, because not only was I there to help them work through the emotional piece of living with cancer and all the things that were going to come next…

ER: But now there's guilt and shame.

DC: Yes. But now we have to [deal with] the guilt and shame [and the false thinking that] they've caused it to themselves. Then, not only that [but] because they've caused it to themselves, look at what they've caused their whole family. It was heartbreaking. I saw it repeat in a smaller way, but right at the top of the pandemic. I remember in 2020 when like the world shut [down] and no one knew what was going on but everybody was [sheltering] in [place] and we were sanitizing our groceries…

ER: Yes, yes. A friend put them in a bin of soap and water. I [thought], 'I think that's more toxic for you.'

DC: Alex was going to the grocery store. I just had one kid at the time, but I remember he had to take off all his clothes. I was wiping down everything.

ER: I forgot. {pause} That's another way to be optimistic. Your brain forgets.

DC: But I remember clients… [I would get] so many calls. They were starting to hear this idea. There was this thing going around… Part of it is true, but if I'm stressed about this and worried, this is going to impact my immune system, which is going go down, and then I'm going contract whatever this virus is. I had all of these people calling. I was like, 'We are living through this very unknown pandemic right now. We don't know much about [this virus]. It is a normal reaction to be worried and stressed [about not knowing] what's coming next and to be scared.' That was one of the first times, aside from my work with oncology patients, [when] it hit me. I [thought], 'There's so much that society and [we] put on top of ourselves, on top of what we already [feel], like, the normalcy of the emotion.' First of all, we make it abnormal to feel anything. Then, we put on a new emotion that's even worse, guilt or shame, because we either caused it or we aren't supposed to feel this way because everybody else we see in like the Reels [on Instagram], which is not real… But [people in the] reels—they're not feeling that. Then, we [feel] shame, guilt, [and] pressure, which is a whole other thing we have to undo before we even get to the main thing we're trying to work through and navigate. It was eye-opening for me, and I'm a product of it too, of course. When I was pregnant with my first [child], Jag, I had a tough pregnancy. I had hyperemesis gravidarum. I threw up 35 times a day on average from six weeks until he came out of me, amongst a bunch of other stuff. I could not find a shred of hope for optimism. It was beyond humbling for me. There was not one tool I could find [that would work for me at the time]. I found my one tool, one brief moment at seven months pregnant in a tub. It was fleeting, but it was there.

ER: But that's what's so important about optimism [and] your message. There are times [when] tools are not going to work for you. I had a real dilemma about releasing a tool into the world, [when I created the 'Fair Play' approach]. I had this tool that had helped all these beta testers and myself. I wasn't thinking of it as a book [initially]. It was for myself after that [blueberry] breakdown. When I didn't go the 'Eat, Pray, Love' route, I decided to have that optimism of seeing what [things could] look like if you treated your home as your most important organization. 'Could I use organizational principles similar to what I used at the Simms/Mann Foundation?'

DC: Which is what you were doing in your professional life [at the time].

ER: Exactly. [If that approach was applied to] the home, what would that look like? If you look at the home as an organization, which I always teach my clients, it [isn't] just a tool. It's similar to what you do, right? You have a tool bag, [and you navigate], which will work, which won't work, and – sometimes – when it won't work at all. It's about power and agency too. You need those things. It's important to set an environment for when it's going to work, but that has nuance. The problem is everybody wants a quick fix. The articles [say], 'What are the five steps to a new body?' or the 'Two steps to happiness,' or 'This is the one secret everyone is following, but you.' Those are the clickbait headlines.

CREATING A MOVEMENT

ER: 'Fair Play' has become a movement. It still sells as well as it did the day it launched – almost five years later. [It's] because the movement is understanding there are themes, things, [and] structures that can help in certain contexts. For me, the home organization was the context I was looking at. What I would tell any organization when I was working with them was that you need three things in any organization or home. You need boundaries. You need systems. You need communication. The reason I bring that up is because… The most interesting thing to the publishers and everybody was the 'Fair Play' cards. There are 100 cards. They represent everything you need to do in your home to make it run efficiently. The goal of the cards is when you hold a card you hold it with full ownership. [If] you hold [the card for] groceries, you know exactly [your responsibility that day].

DC: It sounds so simple, but when we had our conversation that was one of the biggest 'aha moments' and takeaways for me because there are so many things like that. My husband is very hands-on and helpful, but I end up doing something I asked him [to do] – that he's happy to do. But I end up having to do it because it [isn't] fully done or fully researched. Or [maybe] I said something out loud and he was looking at me but it [didn't register]. That happens all the time.

ER: I'm not working for you [properly] if I come to your office and say, 'Hey, what should I be doing today? I'm going to wait here until you tell me what to do.'

DC: We're reactive, not proactive.

ER: Those quick fixes of, 'Give me the cards,' it doesn't work. Similar to your practice. What people have to understand is that a boundary system [and] communication practice [is a muscle]. I try to equate it to exercise. I would have people say, 'Your Fair Play cards didn't work. I told my partner to be the tooth fairy and then they didn't show up with a dollar and it ruined our lives.' What was happening I realized was that [people wanted a quick fix]. … As much as Trump is the most horrific person that's touched our lives – or at least my modern life as an adult – I've watched and studied him. I think the practice of what he does so well is… He repeats the same things over and over again. … If you want to create idea change, whether it's evil or good, we have to keep repeating the same thing over and over again. Part of that is saying, 'The things that will help you the most, those [tools] in your toolbox, are going to [work] if it's a practice. [But] people don't want practices; they want pills, they want quick fixes.

DC: It's the same thing I say in my practice. Optimism is a muscle. You have to exercise it, and it atrophies. But, at the same token, optimistically, if you work on it, it quickly grows.

ER: That's how communication is. People would come to me and say, 'There's no way I could bring Fair Play up in my relationship because I communicated with my partner once in 2005 and that conversation didn't go well.' I said, 'Close your eyes. I want you to picture [saying] the same thing to your doctor. They ask you if you exercise and you say, I exercised once in 2005. I took a spin class in New York and it's 2023 and I should be fit forever. It doesn't work that way.' Even if you don't do it every day, it's a muscle, it regresses. I surveyed over a thousand people on social media. I asked them what their most important practice was. I wish someone said optimism. No one said that. What they said was exercise or a version of meditation or they didn't understand the question. I was looking for at least one of the thousand people to say that communication was their most important practice. If we can start looking at each other and say, 'I'm here to get better at communicating with you.' … My job as your burgeoning friend is to get to know you better, to learn how to best communicate [with you], and how we both communicate. That's the practice of communication.

DC: The practice of communication is the gift that keeps giving. Once you have that rapport and the communication style, you feel seen and heard. They feel seen and heard. You know how to talk to someone, how to be there for someone, [and] then the sky's the limit on your connection. You've done this legwork and the foundation [is there, so, then] you can have a conversation. By the way, we often forget that the family is a system.

ER: Boundaries and communication are the crux of the system and that's why the cards don't work without that.

DC: We spend so much time and money on doing that in corporate [settings] and they understand it, but we don't do it for our [families and personal relationships].

ER: Handbook onboarding. Social communication.

DC: Imagine if we had an onboarding handbook—

ER: For every child that came into the world.

DC: Yes, and at different developmental—

ER: Stages.

DC: To communicate with someone, you have to first understand yourself. I always say, 'There's no time wasted getting to know yourself.'

ER: I wish I could have come to you in your practice because that's the hardest part.

DC: It is. Because once you know that, you know what to ask for. Couples come to me, too, and it's the same thing. It's the same setup. I don't want to ask for [help]. I want it to just happen. Otherwise, what's the point? It feels transactional then. We are not mind readers and we should also feel like we deserve to be able to have what we need.

ER: And to ask for it.

DC: And to practice how to ask for it. We don't even know what to ask for because we spend so little time now going in. Our whole intuition, our gut is messed up right now just because we spend so much [time] distracted.

ER: By the way, I'm starting to realize that some of these tools I've been wearing [might get in the way of intuition]. My doctor [told] me to wear a glucose monitor, and [I wear] my watch. How do you feel about this? Do you feel like sometimes the gut is being replaced by these external tools? That seems [to be] what's happening to me – like I'll feel good, but then I'll see my glucose shot up 200, and [then], all of a sudden, I feel terrible. I don't know if those are helpful. How much external or internal should we pay attention to?

DC: Unfortunately, all of this is a muscle. Our brain is a muscle. The less we use it, the less we have the ability to use it, recognize it, and trust it. We are already at this point. I read this research article the other day that was saying—from a neuroscientific point of view—we're not using our hands enough. An important part of neurotransmitters in the brain is to use our hands. We're not gardening. Even [my 'Things Are Looking Up Cards'] cards. It was important to me to have a deck of cards because I wanted someone to flip a card. That does something to your brain when you flip a card. Everything is easier [these days]. Everything is technologically forward. There's a lot about that I think is amazing. Some of these wearables save lives. … I'd rather someone use a wearable and know what they're doing. But at the same time, you bring up a good point because I think it furthers us in that direction of, 'We don't need to use our gut anymore or our intuition.' So, then in the places where it can't be replaced, we don't have confidence in it. Like when we're speaking to a friend, and we can't understand or we're getting [into] a romantic relationship, we can't quite understand, 'Is this person safe? Is this person good for me or not? Is this what I want?' You're starting to lose that intuition and that gut space, but the optimistic part of it is it can always come back if you do the time.

ER: I love that.

DC: It's not about buying anything or going on any sort of retreat or having to do an 'Eat, Pray, Love.' It's just about being silent with yourself or spending a certain amount of time every single day. I'm [a big fan of] micro-moments. Based on what I do, I have tried a lot of things. Before I had kids, I had all these wonderful things that I would do to make me feel good. People would leave work, especially after working in oncology, and be like, 'I need a glass of wine.' I don't drink wine. It doesn't suit me.

ER: Or coffee. For both of us.

THE JOY LIST, MICRO-MOMENTS, & MORE

DC: My body holds everything physically. A weekly massage was my [form of self-care]. I [didn't see it as] an indulgence. I saw it as 'I can't do what I'm doing without it because I hold everything here. Once that happens, then my physical body starts to get tense, and then I get a migraine. Then, I can't talk to anybody with a migraine.' So, I would get a massage. That was big for me. I also know one of my love languages is touch. That's important to me. When I had Jag, I had a lot of expectations [for] myself. I had a horrible pregnancy and I didn't connect to him [during that time]. Right when he came out, I connected [and was afraid to be away from him]. Somewhere in my mind, I knew I was never going to be able to [be pregnant] again because I had a lot of [emergencies]. I was so protective and in control. I never pumped. I [only] breastfed him. I didn't want anyone [else] to feed him. I would speak on a panel, and I would rush back. Before the networking [portion of the day], I'd feed him, and then I'd run back. It was a mess. I remember strolling him [in our neighborhood] and thinking, 'I know I need a massage right now, but I don't have the time to do it. I don't have the time to do one of my visual imagery [exercises]. I don't have the time to read a book because I can't get through a chapter. So I'm just not going to do any of it,' which was not serving me well. Once, I was scrolling him down West Third, and—I don't know what came over me, but—I had him in the stroller, and I was feeling out of control to the max. I passed one of those nail shops that said, 'A dollar a minute for a massage.' I wheeled him in. I had five minutes, and I said, 'Can I do a five-minute neck massage?' It wasn't ideal. It wasn't like the most magical thing. But he was there and I [was] sitting in the front of the window in one of those chairs. I had a five-minute massage and it changed my day. I remember learning that day, 'I'm not going to have the time anymore, right now, to do the things I used to do. But I also dreamed of this and this is my new reality.' My new thing is… I use micro-moments throughout my day. If I have three minutes in between clients, I put on music and I dance. Or I come out on the balcony, and I look at the trees in the wind. Whatever it is. I keep a joy list on my phone.

ER: I love it.

DC: [When] you have two minutes to spare, you don't remember what to do. But if you go to your joy list, you pick something out.

ER: You know I love lists.

DC: I know you do. I believe in teaching people – especially moms – about micro-moments. … If you do five or six micro-moments throughout the day, it sets you up for a better mood. And it does the same if not more than your one-hour yoga class [if] you end up not even making it because you can't do it.

ER: That's the definition of practice. Our work intersects again. I'm a lawyer, so the way I look at the world is through behavior design.

DC: By the way, [where] did you go to [school]?

ER: I went to Harvard [for law school]. I went to Michigan undergrad. I'm the biggest fan. Go Blue, and we won the national championship this year. Talk about optimism. That's a whole other story. We were the only people [still on the plane waiting for it to take off]. After seven hours of being grounded, I was like, 'This fucking plane's going to take off. I know it.' There were six of us left on the plane. Everyone had gone back to L.A. and we got there for the national championship in a fucking hurricane from Houston to Dallas. [In any case], what was interesting about the journey of understanding this from a legal perspective is that… As I said earlier, I have this HBO show 'Succession' expertise. It's bringing grace, humor, and generosity to hard organizational decisions in complex family businesses and family foundations. There [are] very few of us [who] do this work, which means I get all the referrals, and now it's hard because I have to turn everybody down.

DC: Is that what you did straight out of law school?

ER: I didn't do that out of law school. I worked at a [corporate law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, LLP directly after school]. I did M&A (mergers and acquisitions). I became a good anticipator of bad things that could happen in contracts.

DC: By the way, something I talk about all the time in optimism is… What makes optimism different than this idea of manifestation is that not only do you visualize the outcome you want, [but] you also must visualize what you will do in an outcome that you don't want.

ER: That's the same [thing]. That's basically what I do. I look into the optimism [of the situation]. You're buying a company; so, you think that it's going to work out, but you also have to know what's going to happen if it doesn't.

DC: You have to know the landmines and when the landmines happen—

ER: —What [are] the breakup fees going to look like? And again, that's why Seth and I now [have] conversations, like, 'What happens when you divorce? That, or in your death, or my death?' … It allows the relationship to grow.

DC: It doesn't mean because you've spoken it out to the universe that now it happens.

ER: It's [not] going to manifest, exactly. It's the opposite.

DC: I agree. When you have tough conversations usually that means your relationship [is in a good place].

ER: Even if it does happen, it's in a better place. If it did, it's better and if it doesn't, it's better. You're not manifesting it if you say it out loud. The legal side was interesting to me. Ultimately, I came to this as a behavior design experiment, [because] I didn't like the way people were acting and I felt, 'Could I create a tool that is like a cousin of what clinical psychologists are doing?' Because you guys [do] amazing CBT work.

DC: ...which I love and is my specialty.

ER: Right. So cognitive behavioral therapy and CBT. The idea though was, 'Who's affecting societal behavior change?' I started to think, 'You know what? I have a place to speak here, too. Because lawyers—that's what we do.' You want people to stop at a stop sign? You can give somebody a tool to vision or manifest a stop sign, but at the end of the day, people are going to fucking stop if you pass a law. If you want people not to vote in Georgia, guess what you're going to do? You're going to pass a law. You want people not to have reproductive rights? You're going to pass a law. From the behavior design perspective, I started to ask people like you – and I ended up speaking to over 100 mental health professionals in 17 countries – about what the true definition of mental health was. What I liked [and] what I heard [is] it's not how to manifest your way to happiness. That is the opposite of what true mental health is. As you know, true mental health is having an appropriate emotion at an appropriate time yet having the ability and strength to weather it.

DC: Exactly.

ER: Once I understood that, and my kids understood, it unlocked everything you [said] earlier. Because what I realized was that I could do those micro-moments to help weather those appropriate emotions. Once I realized that rage and resentment and guilt and shame and complete grief for my life that I had before kids – that was all normal and they were at the right times. Because if someone's sending you a fucking text, 'I'm surprised you didn't get blueberries,' you're going to fucking hate them and be rageful. But how was I going to weather it? So, that's what gets back to your micro-moments, whether it's that realization you had in that five-minute nail salon that will help you weather that day, or whether it's what I talk about in 'Fair Play' and then my second book, 'Unicorn Space,' is the return to our values. If I ask people what their values are over 10 years, what I hear [from people] is family, friends, and health. Please, God, we all want those. I'm giving you those as a bingo card.

DC: Add to that.

ER: Yeah. What else can you tell me about you? Not that those are boring values, even though they are for my research, [but] I want to know [about you].

PRACTICING WHAT THEY PREACH

ER: I'll do an exercise I love to do for our readers. What's one of your favorite things to do?

DC: I love putting on music and dancing. I like moving to music.

ER: Do you ever dance with other people, like in a class?

DC: I used to. I've done it before. It's the only way I was able to exercise.

ER: Would you like that feeling of being with other people and that communal experience of dance? Or is it a more private thing?

DC: No, I love it, and I don't do it enough, but I always love it.

ER: We should go to LA Dance Fit together. I heard they have a great hip-hop class.

DC: By the way, I am not a quote, unquote [dancer]. I told myself I wasn't allowed to say I'm not a dancer anymore. But I always caveat that – and I always tell clients not to. Because if you move your body to music, you're a dancer.

ER: Absolutely. I like to tell people to 'verb-ify' their life. Because what I realize is that people who 'noun-ify' their lives have a harder time with it. We may not be dancers, but have you danced? 'Or I'm not an acrobat.' I'm like, 'Well, have you tried the trapeze at the Santa Monica Pier?' 'I have. I've done trapeze.' So, let's 'verb-ify' our lives right now. Dance is one of mine, too. I've done some performances and [it's the] same thing... I have like a bone spur. I can't turn anymore.

DC: I have not even danced as a performance since I was seven.

ER: We should still go back. We should still go and do a fun class.

DC: I'm that type of person where I feel like it's genetic from my dad, but if music were to turn on anywhere, I can't not dance.

ER: So, I want to ask you… If you think about a time [when] you're in one of those classes, and you're sweaty, and your heart is beating fast, and you're in the sync of [the] choreography [with] other people around you… I want you to give me five values it brings up for you. … If you're saying family, friends, and health, and that's all you can think about, how you can back [into the answer] by understanding things that you love and have curiosity, connection, and completion? When you [complete] that class… Let's back into [the answer with] five values we can gift you this week that you'll practice, okay?

DC: Okay, something that came up for me immediately was being creative.

ER: Creativity is a great value.

DC: Feeling free.

ER: Freedom is a great one.

DC: Feeling feminine, sexy energy.

ER: Sexy. I love that.

DC: And feeling healthy, which is something [I've been] struggling with recently. A lot. I struggle with it not because I'm like, 'Oh, I just don't have time for it,' which I do truly believe, but at the same time, I know that that's an excuse too because I could make time for it, but I don't.

ER: Same.

DC: So, there must be something [to it]. I turned 40 last August and I [and it's the first time I have] ever felt that. From 30 to 40, I just rode on genetics.

ER: Same.

DC: I texted my husband the other day… I don't remember where we were, but I was at home with the three kids alone and I texted him and my best friend Tiffany [Fong] – who is a mom in your class…

ER: Oh my god, I didn't realize that Tiffany and you are close. I love her.

DC: Yeah, I texted them separately, but the same thing.

ER: She's in 'Unicorn Space.'

DC: She is?

ER: I wrote an anecdote about her when she was the illustrator for her Easter book. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

DC: Before she [got] her MBA, out of undergrad, she was Steve Jobs's first assistant.

ER: I did not know that.

DC: She's incredible but anyway… I was going to say I texted both of them separately and I said, 'I don't do drugs but I truly understand the need for drugs and I would do drugs right now if I did drugs.'

ER: Totally.

DC: Then Alex wrote back and said, 'You could probably just start with coffee.' I was ready to try it. I went to a coffee shop that day, and I ran into a guy friend of ours, and he was like, 'What are you doing?' It was the Luxe Cafe in Brentwood. I was in line. It was a long line, so then I went out of line and then came in line. He was like, 'Are you in line?' I'm like, 'You're going to think I'm nuts. I've never tried coffee before. I think I need to try it, but I can't decide. So, I keep going in and out of line because I'm not sure.' I ended up not doing it. It just wasn't for me. It sounds so ridiculous.

ER: But it's not. Because that's that clickbait – the quick fix for our lives is hedonic well-being.

DC: And I know too much. [I understand] that's not going to work for me.

ER: It's not. But it doesn't work for anyone.

DC: I go right there. I'm like, 'This is not gonna work.'

ER: By the way, look [at] this conversation – how much deeper it got just because I understood that health is one of your values. And how much more interesting is it that I get to know you as a human [by] understanding those values [versus if] I just knew that you love your kids? Not that that's not great, but I'm going to assume that about you.

DC: I love that you took that out. It's interesting because I do a lot of value work with my clients… I love taking people through Ikigai's practice.

ER: Same.

DC: I do a values journal, and I love that you take that out because even if it is someone's true values—

ER: —And they are. If you're from Indian culture especially, or Hindu culture or Jewish culture, family comes first. It's wonderful for many reasons. But the problem with family… and I will say this… I learned this because I work with families. ... When you have families that work together—especially [those] who I work with—the number one word that came up for everybody in that system was obligation and duty. So, those are values that I had to work on to throw [out]. Not that those are not important. I have huge obligations. I have a disabled brother. I'm in charge of his care, and it's a lot of time, a lot of effort, and so obligation and duty are there. That comes with a family. I can hear your love of your family and your love of your friends by understanding the values – just by backing into them. So I love to know, 'You like to feel sexy.' I love to know, 'You want to feel free.' I love to know, 'You want to feel creative'. … What I'd love for you to do is to say to yourself, 'Did I get to practice creativity this week? Did I get to practice freedom this week? Did I get to practice health this week?' Obviously, don't [feel] guilt and shame if you don't.

FLEXIBILITY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

DC: [I remember] pre-kids, going anytime I wanted to this funny workout called Yoga Booty Ballet on top of Third Street. It was strength training, but cardio [and] dancing as if you were on top of your bed in your pajamas with a pillow fight. Sometimes, I get the same feeling from going on a walk alone. Not because I'm walking for something or because I'm walking a child. Just walking [for myself]. I live in a great neighborhood to walk. One of the things I was never told, and I don't know if everyone should be told what it's like to have children… But one thing I wish I knew before… I don't know what I would have done differently, but… But if you do want to have a profession, and you worked really hard for something, and you want to continue on the path. And you do want to have a full social life, and you do want to have time with your kid and all of it in some capacity… [you should understand] how much you are going to be relying upon other people and the trust that you have to [learn] and the process of allowing for that to happen. Then, on top of it, [you're going to have to learn] the process of hiring someone and working with them. It's the hardest part of my life. One of my weaknesses is delegation. [It's also] a pro for me. It's helped in a lot of ways, but it's also a weakness… I'm protective over the people I love and who more to be protective of than my children? I'm not chill about stuff. It [took] me a year of knowing a person before they drove my kids.

ER: I understand that. Hence, why all of us need more of a partner in our partner … because that's a person that you trust implicitly. That is what's so hard. So many women weren't going to the person they trusted first. Because they heard so many toxic messages… If you're overwhelmed, get help. But [for] women like us, the help has to come from people where the trust is already built in because, otherwise, you're in the same execution if you're telling people what to do. You're holding the mental load.

DC: And I'm there the whole time [with childcare]. We're just both doing it. There was something you said earlier, too, that I thought was interesting and I don't know what your husband Seth does. I forget, but…

ER: Private equity.

DC: Alex was in the entertainment industry. Now he works in gaming, but he works with people and in a company. When you said before, 'I'll do my own thing and start my own agency and that'll be easier.'

ER: Ha. Right.

DC: Then, the lull came, and the 'ha.' I run my own business. I consult. I have a practice. I have the 'Things Are Looking Up' [deck]. It is all me. When things happen that are not working out for childcare, or something's happening in the house, the first person to deal with it is me because my job—

ER: —is more flexible.

DC: 'My job is more flexible.' But, in the end, it's the opposite because I have no one else to pass the buck to.

ER: 100 percent. By the way, there's a study that shows… We asked women who are lawyers and their husbands were doctors, 'Whose job is more flexible?' [The male doctors] said their job is more flexible. Then, we switched it. We asked women who were doctors and men who were lawyers, 'Whose job is more flexible?' Tada. The [female] doctors said their job is more flexible. So, flexibility is in the eye [of] the beholder. It's just another patriarchal way of controlling women's time. … At the end of the day, we're looking at a combination of agency in people's lives and systemic change where we also change how and what we value. That's the hardest part because we become complicit in our oppression because it's easier.

DC: Sometimes, we can be surprised when we give more responsibility to our partner. [But surprised] in a good way.

ER: Yes and by the way, the surprise is so beautiful.

SPIRITUAL FRIENDS

DC: I wanted to tell you something. I like so many things about you and I'm drawn to you for so many reasons but something recently that has drawn me even more [to you] and [that] I appreciate about you so much… I called you out of nowhere. It had been a long time, [but] I knew you had gone down the book route, and I was about to make a decision on what publisher to go with. Your openness to drop everything in your busy life to talk to me [meant so much] because I had to make a decision that day. [You shared with me things] I wouldn't have even known to ask. [For you to] tell me and commit to me, like, 'I'm going to give you all the things I learned about it and my network and my rolodex.'

ER: Of course. I'm just so excited for you.

DC: I haven't experienced that much [generosity] in that way before. I was floored by it and it felt so real. I love you even more. I felt much more confident going on the journey because I [had] you in my corner.

ER: I feel that way. I want your success.

DC: I feel that from you. I always say, 'You know a true friend [when they celebrate you].' We went through something so shitty this year and people came out of the woodwork. I'm so appreciative, but they came out of the woodwork to be supportive. But you know a true friend because they come out of the woodwork to celebrate your success. Or to help you along the way.

ER: People love the pathology if something's going wrong for you. That first couple of weeks launching 'Fair Play' and the craziness of the lead up to [it], I look back and I [think], 'Who was with me on that journey?' Sometimes my husband makes fun of me. He calls me Dr. Eve because I can't help getting involved. It is something my therapist told me a long time ago. When you grow up with a lot of trauma, [that's how it manifests]. I grew up on food stamps with a single mother; my father wasn't very involved in my life; I take care of my disabled brother… [But my therapist shared that when you grow up with trauma], you over-function for other people. I always have to say to my friends, 'I understand my boundaries are going to over-function for you. So you can push back on me. You don't need to make the decision I told you to make. Just understand I'm going to have strong opinions for you because I care. But understand that I don't judge you if you don't do what I tell you to do. But I'm just going to give you what I think is the best advice for everybody's path,' because why else are we on this Earth, you know?

DC: I feel that from you. It was so touching to me.

ER: You're going to notice that there are people who will support you in your success and other people who like to come out when you're under duress. What I learned and I wrote this in my second book… I call the people who came out for us in our success, 'spiritual friends.' It came from one of my rabbis. What I like about the idea of spiritual friendships is that they don't have to be people you've known forever. The idea of Drake—like, 'No New Friends'—my husband believes that. I get it because trust is so hard. But I do think there are people along your journey that you pick up. I have friends I met in this activism space [who] are so different than me that I never would have met before. I consider them as close as people I've known for 20 years. I have a core group of 10 women from Michigan, my college, that were transformative [who] I still see. We prioritize a women's trip once a year. But the problem with just relying on those types of spiritual friends is that part of that antidote to burnout is being consistently interested in your own life and consistently supported. That consistency has to come from different places.

DC: And you evolve.

ER: Like your Joy List, I have a friendship list, which you may think is weird. But I write down all [of] the people I want to check in with that week. I look at [it to see], 'What is it that I could do to support them or they can do to support me?'

DC: I'm giving you a wonderful hug. This is the best gift that we got to connect, spiritual friend.

ER: You are. You are on my spiritual friend list.